"A never ending self improvement journey"

Weekly Grind August 11, 2017

Rest day*

So a little different than all my previous posts, I’m gonna talk about how to help you improve your recovery for them gains. In the past, I used to think that the harder you work the stronger and the faster I’ll grow. But your body doesn’t necessarily work that way, you have to work hard and smart. About 3 days ago I wasn’t feeling the best and had symptoms of the flu. I felt weak, I had headaches, everything was sore, and I felt like I needed extra energy just to move around. I decided not to workout or do cardio but instead go on a walk (I’m still getting ready for a show so I had to get active somehow). I got my sleep in, hydrated myself, got extra veggies and fruit, and most importantly…I slept.

These are some of the things I’ve been doing to help me recover faster after my workouts. Your performance is directly affected by your recovery. This includes sleep, nutrition, mobility, how well you deal with inflammation, and how much you’re actually working out. You grow during your sleep and how well you perform is based on your recovery so why not pay extra attention to it.

Sleep: I’m not the best example of this but I’m working on it every day. About 7-8 hours of quality sleep. The difference here is “quality” of sleep as opposed to the amount of time you’re sleeping. Deep sleep is where the magic happens, this is when you recover and is what gives you that rested feeling when you wake up. Here are some quick tips to help you get better sleep. Sleep in a pitch black room, try not to eat about 1 hr before bed, don’t drink too much water towards the end of the day so you don’t wake up in the middle of the night, go to sleep at the same time and wake up at the same time every day, and do something active throughout the day to force your to sleep.

Nutrition: The main thing to remember here is “balance”. You have a balance of enough protein to recover and build muscle, enough carbohydrates to energize you, and healthy fats to maintain optimal health. .8-1.5 gr of protein per pound of body weight is a range I recommend. You could go higher but there’s no real benefit to that besides taking away calories from fats and carbs. I wouldn’t go below the .8 mark either because your body needs enough protein. Usually using a macro calculator like the one MyFitnessPal has is very useful and free to use. Once you’re in the app you can adjust the fats and carbs however you want.

Mobility: stretch and foam roll. The main places most people are “tight” are hamstrings, calves, piriformis, and psoas. You can google stretches for those body parts and come up with a routine that best suits your needs.

Inflammation: this is a very long topic on itself and it’s something most people don’t think about at all. I’m not going to go too in depth with this but I suggest reading more about Inflammation and how it affects your performance. It affects how well you recover, makes you prone to injury, prone to sickness, and more. Some ways to fight inflammation include, good programming that allows you to fully recover, adding a fish oil supplement, eating whole grains and healthier foods, and sleep (there’s a lot more but like I said I won’t be going too in depth because this post will become a whole book)

Working out: The main thing to keep in mind when setting up your workouts shouldn’t be what muscles you’re trying to grow but it should be what days can you work out and what is the best split to allow you to recover the best. Getting at least 48 hr before training the same body part, stay below 25-30 sets of exercises, if you’re going heavy make sure to cycle the weight and not just use the heaviest weight you can handle, etc. I’ve mentioned this before but it’s not about how long you can push for but how hard you can push yourself on the sets you do. You can’t work out at a gym and go all out on 2 hours of exercise but 45-60 min is more believable. If truly push yourself you shouldn’t be able to go more than 60-90 min.

So here were some tips to help you with recovery, if you’re struggling with anything let me know in the comments and I may be able to help out. I hope you enjoyed it and got something out of it. On that note, thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it or think it may help someone else out, please spread the word. If you’re interested in future posts, subscribe below (scroll all the way down) and get notified when I put out the next post. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!